


Allons-Y!

by CopperBeech



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, Jealous Crowley, Jealousy, Monster of the Week, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), POV Crowley (Good Omens), Pining, Road Trip, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22703767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: An afternoon’s chat at the duckpond is disrupted by an alien incursion. And a sudden, brief roadtrip.“I’m the Doctor…” the man began, before the grin faded into a faint quizzical expression.That was the face that looked back at Crowley every time he passed a mirror. Except for the eyes.He remembered having eyes that wouldn’t frighten children.“...pleased to meet you,” the Doctor finished. Crowley decided to loathe him on sight.“My word,” came Aziraphale’s voice from behind him. “It’s so much bigger on the inside.”
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale (Good Omens) & Tenth Doctor, Crowley (Good Omens) & Martha Jones, Tenth Doctor & Martha Jones
Comments: 50
Kudos: 174





	Allons-Y!

**Author's Note:**

> So I was exchanging comments with OiShem on one of my fics, and they remarked "Has Crowley ever crossed paths with the Tenth Doctor?" which was a thought I'd had literally less than three hours before, and though a tag search makes it clear I'm not the first or fiftieth person to play with the idea, it seemed impossible to refrain.

_"RUN!!!!"_

One moment they were enjoying a seemingly chance conversation by the pond, passing the bread back and forth as they tore bits away; the next, a smooth, cool, brown hand closed on Crowley’s in the act of flinging a morsel of day-old baguette, pulling him along before he could say _duck_. At first he was propelled by sheer shock and momentum – that grip was urgent with adrenaline, and running trumped measuring his length on the mowed turf – and then by a sense that something very unpleasant indeed was gaining on them.

“It’s a Gazenian auravore,” came a voice to his right. “Invisible. Voracious. Senses time lability and supernatural beings – don’t know if it was coming for you or us – “

“My _dear_ fellow – “ Aziraphale was being pulled along likewise, still carrying the bag of bread, by a slender, vaguely familiar man whose snug suit and flapping duster coat gave Crowley a twinge of sartorial envy. Someone he’d tempted recently, maybe? No, he’d remember. The woman gripping his hand tugged, putting on more speed. Something _very_ ugly. And hungry.

“This way – “ Aziraphale, built more for comfort than speed, was struggling to keep up, and Crowley sensed he was bracing for a miracle as they reached the Mall, but: “Don’t do anything supernatural!” shouted the strange man. “They feed on it! Over here – “ He pelted in the direction of Trafalgar Square, then doglegged south, tyres squealing and horns blasting as they zigzagged through traffic at the roundabout, dodged behind the Tesco, and – was that an old-fashioned call box? Some sort of exhibition? The presence behind them was getting closer. Crowley vainly threw the wad of bread over his shoulder in its general direction. “Inside!” And before he could quite register what was happening, the lean man was fumbling at the door of the call box, yanking it open, thrusting Aziraphale through ahead of him. Before Crowley could lunge at the stranger who’d dared manhandle his angel that way, the young woman had followed – they were going to be smashed together in there like kippers in a tin – and –

He was rolling over, wind knocked out of him, on the polished floor of a huge chamber, lit like one of the Soho clubs and full of gadgetry. Vaulting up over a railing, onto a dais, toward a central column of pale green light, the man seized a lever; darted back and forth around the console, fingers flying over inscrutable controls. There was a pounding and scrabbling at the flimsy-looking double doors, which shuddered as if they were about to give, then the whole structure shook. Aziraphale was dusting invisible smutches off his waistcoat. Lights flashed - a screeching, pulsing noise seemed to go straight through Crowley’s skull without bothering to enter at the ears, and –

The shaking and scrabbling stopped. Their rescuer sagged slightly over the console with a loud exhale. “They can’t handle open space,” he said. “It’ll have nipped back to its own dimension. Jones? You all right?”

“Most of me,” said the young woman, pulling to her feet and approaching the doors. “Where are we?”

“Just past Alpha Centauri – “ Crowley’s heart gave a thump. There was a snick as she flung the doors wide.

On a field of seed-pearl stars.

Gawping, he looked from the spectacle outside to the boyish face grinning at him across all the dials and levers. _Buggery_ , there was a reason he looked familiar. “I’m the Doctor…” the man began, before the grin faded into a faint quizzical expression.

That was the face that looked back at Crowley every time he passed a mirror. Except for the eyes.

He remembered having eyes that wouldn’t frighten children.

"...ah -- pleased to meet you,” the Doctor finished. Crowley decided to loathe him on sight.

“My word,” came Aziraphale’s voice from behind him. “It’s so much bigger on the inside.”

* * *

At least a pair of legs, in stovepipe trousers and white trainers, weren’t as unsettling to look at as that face. The Doctor had been under the console for a quarter of an hour, fiddling with some hand tool that made noises as eerie as the ship’s, and he didn’t seem to be making much headway.

“Secondary vortex processor off _line_ … tachyon leak… right, that’s sealed it…take a few hours to build up… ow!” Crowley smiled grimly as a head met the underside of the console, his finger-snap blocked from view by his body. _Swipe_ my _face, will you._

“So it was a completely ordinary day,” the brown-skinned woman went on with her narrative of meeting the Doctor, “meaning my family nibbling me to death by inches – “

“Know the feeling,” said Crowley.

“ – and I was working him up in Casualty, dead cert he was mental, and then – bang! – on the Moon.”

Aziraphale was ever so helpfully holding a light for the Doctor – stretched out on the floor next to the console, apparently unconcerned about his morning coat. Crowley couldn’t recall seeing Aziraphale recline since Rome, and that was on a couch. Eating stuffed dates and something drenched in honey that he licked unselfconsciously off his fingertips… let’s not think about that.

“Going to be stuck here for a while,” said the Doctor, scooting out from under the console (one hand on his head, Crowley noted with satisfaction). “Sorry, but, you know, not eaten by the auravore, right?" He had a thousand-watt smile. Crowley's animus redoubled. "Messy eaters, too, don’t clean up after themselves. Well. Fancy a look round while we wait?”

“You’ve got more blinky lights? Edge of my seat, mate.”

“Crowley, he _did_ save us an inconvenient discorporation.”

“He says.”

“I’m afraid Crowley’s a creature of routine, gets very grumpy – “

“Says the man in the hundred-year-old suit –– “

Crowley broke off as he sensed the Doctor’s thoughtful, assessing look. A hand came up, ran through the very ordinary shock of brown hair, once and a second time. “Yes. Well." The boyish smile brightened again. "Tour the ship? Longest operating TARDIS in existence – Time And Relative Dimension In Space, you know – made loads of improvements – lots of collections - “ If the man's face became any more animated, thought Crowley sourly, it was going to leap off his head. It seemed rude of someone else to be doing that with his own features.

“That would be _absolutely charming_ ,” said Aziraphale with a ghost of the delighted wriggle that Crowley’d seen greet an approaching dessert trolley. “Coming, Crowley?”

Crowley shook his head. “Bit off colour after all that,” he said. “I’ll just stay here with – “

“Martha,” said the young woman.

“Martha and I can have a bit of a talk.”

The Doctor turned, extended a hand back towards Aziraphale, who took it. “This way,” he said as they disappeared down a corridor (had it been there a moment ago?), already at a near jog-trot. “Whole archive of galactic lexicography – “

Crowley gazed after them grimly. If looks could kill, the Doctor would have been on life support.

* * *

“So it’s a bit like it is with us, then? Only you don’t have to fill out paperwork? When you get a new corporation – “

“Regeneration.”

“Well – it looks different? Ours reflect our inner natures, you see. They stay the same. I’m afraid I’m a trifle – um, indulgent, and Crowley – well, he’s all intensity – a bit like you – “

“Been old, young, fat, thin, last two times in a row got stuck with big ears – this way, past the stair to the swimming pool – ”

“I saw you looking at him. I confess I didn’t see the resemblance at first, but if you turn your head just so – yes, I suppose –”

“Don’t really know how the process chooses what we look like. There might've been some nonlocal connection operating at just that moment. Only – _still_ not ginger.” The long fingers ruffled through obstinately brown hair, gestured frustration.

“It _is_ a bit striking, isn’t it? I can always pick him out of a crowd.”

“Known him long then?”

“Oh, ages… we do just keep fetching up together.”

“You've made me think a bit of someone too. S'pose 'cos first time I met her, the first thing I said was _run_ …”

“Do you do that a lot?”

“Part of the life.”

* * *

“The Doctor said you’re an angel and a demon." Martha's eyebrows lifted. "Strange bedfellows."

Crowley snorted. "No fear."

"Which of you is which?”

“You can't tell?”

“Travelling with him, I’ve learned appearances can fool you.”

“He’s the bloody angel, how can you miss it? All sweetness and light.”

“And stodginess.” She winked.

Crowley couldn’t help smiling. “That too. Comes with the territory… So, how long you two been together?”

“About a – oh, not _together_ together. Just – travelling.”

But her tone was wistful. “Sometimes you see a chance,” she answered his unspoken question, “and you can’t turn away… I’ve seen things…”

“Shown you all the nations of the galaxy, has he?”

‘Something like that.” When she smiled, her face bloomed.

“Close to my own speciality.”

“You’re a lot like him.” _I’m his bloody separated-at-birth twin._ “A bit sad, a bit soft… a bit of a bad boy – Don’t look at me like that, I’m not a carnival psychic. I’m a doctor too, the medical kind. We learn to size people up.’

They were sitting in the TARDIS doors, legs dangling into open space within the force capsule that kept out absolute vacuum. The field of stars moved imperceptibly with their slow drift, a cascade of glitter dust prinked with the coloured smears of nebulas and the occasional flux of a binary.

“Think that’s one of mine,” said Crowley, pointing off to the left. “Well, I had a team.”

“Thought you said you were the demon. They do stars?’

“Wasn’t always. See, his lot’s all got size-eleven sticks up their arses – turfed me out quick as wink soon’s I started asking questions – “

“The Doctor’s kind of like that too. Sort of a renegade where he comes from. They keep trying to tell him what to do, stranded him on Earth once – “

“And he doesn’t see it. Lets them shove him around, run him ragged…”

“So – how long’ve _you_ been together?”

“Ah? Oh.” Crowley grinned briefly in spite of himself, looked down at the stars beneath his feet. “Not _together_ together. Either.”

“Oh, no. You just worry about how his people treat him, and twit him about those clothes, and turn green when someone touches his hand.”

“Um… six thousand years. But, y'know. Demon. Angel. Awkward.”

“And does he know?”

The silence drew out until it became unwieldy. “No idea,” Crowley said softly. The angel’s excited voice drowned out Martha’s reply.

“Crowley! My dear, you really did miss a treat – perhaps if you’re feeling more the thing before we’re under way again – I’m sure I’ll get a reprimand, I’m going to be late with several blessings, but – isn’t this spiffing? We’re going to have a look at the map room, surely you’d like – after all the work you put in back in the day, just look at them – ”

“That’s one of mine, right over there, angel.” But Aziraphale didn’t seem to be listening.

* * *

“It’s not building up tachyon flux as quickly as I’d hoped. We may be a bit longer than I expected.”

“Ah well, can’t be helped. Perhaps you could show us round that wardrobe room you mentioned. Crowley, I know you dote on that sort of thing.”

“Doting? Not my style, angel.” Dr. Jones’s eyeroll went unnoticed; Crowley had moved in so close to Aziraphale that the sides of their shoes were touching.

“Will miracles cause trouble in here? I could manage a decent whisky, bit of a thank-you – "

“ _S_ houldn’t – ow! – be a problem, just don’t know how they’d affect the ship directly – “

“I like Tomatin, over ice,” said Dr. Jones.

The Doctor, rubbing his head again, raised eyebrows at her. “You do?”

“Come on, how do you think I survived medical school?”

* * *

They miracled a second bottle. Dr. Jones had begged off after one top-up, and was working the console under direction from beneath, the occasional whir of the odd little instrument reaching them as they looked out over the trailing end of one spiral arm.

“I really had no idea. Look at this – he picked it up in Pompeii, you remember those lovely villas – such a shame – insisted on giving it to me. Delightful man, such a broad traveller – I do sometimes feel that my life is a bit provincial.”

“Alpha Centauri? Been offering to show you some of my work for ages.”

“I didn’t want to put you out of sorts – you know how broody and testy you get when you've been thinking back on it – “

“I’ll take you, angel. Won’t say a single sad thing. I’ll be obnoxiously jolly.”

“Have a bit more of this – all these devices, amazing, isn’t it?”

“When did you start liking _gadgets?"_

“One just doesn’t imagine – I’d’ve thought you’d be keen – “

“Gimcrack.”

“Whatever’s got into you? You're so cross.”

“Maybe it’s a bit much to be yanked halfway across my _own bit of the galaxy_ by someone who looks like he's bloody _stolen my face_ – “

“Oh, not really. He seems much younger than you, and – well, more innocent somehow –”

“Well, how hard d'ye have to work to be more innocent than a demon?”

Crowley’s question was punctuated by a sudden harsh spitting noise as the console erupted in sparks, throwing Dr. Jones back a few feet to land on her bum with a jolt and a yelp.

“ _Almost had it!!!_ ”

“No, don’t worry, I’m fine,” sighed Dr. Jones. Belatedly the Doctor scrambled into sight.

“Sorry, that wasn’t meant to – “

“I’m fine,” she repeated.

“Take a break. Angel? Do you think you could spell Dr. Jones for a bit? I’ve almost got it – “

 _Angel_. The swanning bastard had just called his angel _Angel_.

This was war.

* * *

“He’s got a soft spot for a blond. Trust me, know the backstory on that one.”

“Have another.”

“How many is that?”

“Not counting.”

“You know, you’re so gruff and prickly with him. Maybe he needs to see the person I’m talking to now. Kind. A little soft even. Like _he_ is.” Martha tilted her head toward the Doctor, who was connecting something at the base of the console, and took a robust swallow. ”Heart’s always on his sleeve, guts me. Your angel's just seeing who you'd be if you took down the walls. Give him a chance, let him in.”

“Yeah, right. Like that wouldn’t go over like a lead balloon.”

“I’m competing with the one who couldn't stay. You’re not. Maybe trust things a bit more.”

“You don’t want to know what happened last time I trusted anyone.”

“Family?” It was the knowing side-eye of someone who sees human life unfiltered.

“You could put it that way…”

Aziraphale called over from the console. “Crowley! The Doctor’s just explained that he can get us back right at the same time we left! I won’t get a reprimand – we can have some adventures! What do you think?”

“Bentley’s about my speed, ‘fraid.”

“Spoilsport! – It’s like stage magic, Crowley – no miracles, just cleverness – “

“Ready up there, angel?”

“Yes, yes, right on it – “ Aziraphale had clearly discovered a genuine enthusiasm for maneuvering the console. There was another short fizz of sparks.

“Right, that’s done it,” said Crowley to Dr. Jones in an undertone. “Can’t go on like this.”

“With you there,” she said, and held out her glass for another pour. She was discovering an almost Celestial capacity.

“Gonna try something. Can’t make things worse.”

Crowley snapped fingers behind his back. Suddenly the central column began to piston and the bone-buzzing sound engulfed them. The Doctor tobogganed down the two levels of the dais feet first as the ship lurched and heeled, Aziraphale clinging to the control panel, eyes shining in a way that would have blown Crowley’s heart open if they’d been turned on him.

For a moment he hesitated – it went against every grain of his nature to separate the angel from something he enjoyed – but there was Martha, a little (a lot?) drunk, her lower lashes glinting damply, and he snapped again and the TARDIS began to spin arse over tip.

The angel was clinging to the guardrail inside the doors, Crowley’s hand closing over his, the Doctor back up and hauling uselessly at a slider on the console before staggering, as the TARDIS banked, to cling to one of the serpentine columns. The galaxy went by outside the windows of the double doors in a rainbow Doppler smear. Just when it seemed that he was going to turn inside out, Crowley felt the spinning slow, crawled a little further to get his arm over the angel’s stout midsection, holding him to the deck. _It's only a moment, but I'm going to steal it._

The ship settled upright. Somehow. The Doctor was already bounding up to the console.

“Close,” he said. “Canary Wharf? I could try again..."

“Ah -- we'll manage,” demurred Aziraphale.

Martha Jones was already outside the double doors, upchucking into a convenient bin.

“Bit of a lightweight,” said Crowley.

* * *

“Thanks awfully. For the experience and, well – the rescue.”

“Auravores, watch out for 'em.”

“Try not biting his head off,” said Martha softly into Crowley’s ear, giving him an unexpected hug.

“Ah –well, habits’re hard to break – just – well, be ready for a bit of something. Demon, ‘s’what I do.”

He turned as Aziraphale bent to sketch a kiss over Dr. Jones' knuckles.

"You've got a good friend there. Treat her right."

The Doctor glanced toward her, back to Crowley, with an expression that briefly mingled regret and apology. "Sorry you couldn't come along this time," he said. "Maybe one day -- who knows, by then I might be ginger - " The grin flashed out again.

Crowley held the Doctor’s eyes for a long string of seconds as they clasped hands, drawing down the sunglasses. Just enough.

“Be glad you didn’t get _these,_ mate.”

He snapped his fingers one more time before the box began to shimmer and fade, the screeching sound disguised by the evening traffic.

“Well, Crowley, perhaps you were right after all – that was quite a rough ride – though I do think my stomach has settled just enough for a bit of supper.”

“My splash."

* * *

“Is that the last?”

“I think so. I cornered this one down by the pool before he could get in it –”

“Bung him in the cage – don’t you _bite!”_

“You’ve got a physician on board if he does.”

“There, lock up – we can drop ’em off on the next habitable world, every planet's got a species like ’em, won’t mess up the ecosystem –”

“Ready when you are.”

“How’d we take on this many rats?”

“Left the door open so long near the water? You know the place. Full of them.”

“Right then. _Allons -y!”_

_finis_

**Author's Note:**

> The Applied Phlebotinum  
> https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum  
> deployed in this story was all, in the honoured tradition of the canonical episodes, pulled directly out of my arse.
> 
> If you enjoyed, share, reblog, comment! Authors are always thirsty. ;)
> 
> Come say hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23189293) by [Sir_Bedevere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/pseuds/Sir_Bedevere)




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